McCain: Hill Has Star Power
Sen. John McCain predicts that if Hillary Rodham Clinton were elected, she would be a "star" unlike any politician seen in Senate since Robert F. Kennedy.
McCain made those comments a day after he campaigned for Clinton's opponent in the New York Senate race, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
"This is the first time in history a first lady has run," the Arizona GOP senator told Columbia University students on Monday.
"She would be a star of the quality that has not been seen in the Senate since Bobby Kennedy was elected senator from the state of New York."
"Many of us believe in a scenario if (Vice President Al) Gore lost and she is elected to the Senate, she'd be running for the president of the United States."
Clinton has said that if elected she will serve her full term and that she is not interested in the White House.
Asked by reporters to clarify his remarks about Clinton, McCain said, "I believe she'd be very liberal and I don't believe she'd be good for the country."
He told the Columbia students that Giuliani would bring "credentials to the Senate that are much needed and very sadly lacking. He understands the challenges of a major city."
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Its members, he said with a laugh, might even help the Republican mayor win his Senate campaign against the first lady.
"I'm sure that will be sufficient to put us over the top and eliminate any further need for fund-raising and further campaigning," the former presidential candidate cracked at a joint news conference with Giuliani.
Clinton used the term "vast right-wing conspiracy" in a 1998 television interview to describe a purported campaign by well-financed groups and individuals to discredit President Clinton and herself.
Her Senate campaign spokesman, Howard Wlfson, said she has never called Giuliani or McCain part of the alleged conspiracy but simply pointed out that the mayor's campaign has accepted contributions from fund-raisers identified with ultraconservative causes.
On Sunday, the Arizona senator praised the mayor as an independent-minded politician who, if elected, would "speak for those that many times in the halls of the United States Senate are not spoken for."
The visit came as Giuliani's campaign aired a new 30-second television ad linking him to the senator. McCain won widespread acclaim, if not sufficient voter support, in his maverick GOP primary bid for the White House. In the ad, Giuliani says he shares McCain's independent approach to public issues.
While Giuliani endorsed George W. Bush and not McCain for president, the mayor refused to criticize McCain and has welcomed the senator's support.